Episode 15: Coming Home to Goodness with Alan Graham

Never did he imagine he will be holding hands and crying with a stadium full of men, Alan Graham's heart was transformed during a Men's Retreat in 1996.  Since then, he has been serving the homeless community in Austin, Texas through the non-profit, Mobile Loaves and Fishes which also led to the development of Community First! Village, a permanent housing solution for the chronically homeless people in his community.  

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Transcript

welcome to hello world where we help you ReDiscover the good that is all around us beautiful transformation occurs when you allow your life to be used by God to do his good work our podcast guest Alan Graham A Visionary CEO and founder of mobile Loaves and Fishes he embodies the spiritual commitment by tirelessly serving the homeless community in Austin Texas

[Music]

hello Alan thank you so much for joining us to share your story hey it's great to be with you Lily thank you so much Alan before we get into all of the Ministries that you've been doing i' like to learn a little bit more about what were you doing before mobile Lo and Fishes I was a um in the real estate business uh as a real estate developer and at that particular time uh I was focusing on developing Air Cargo facilities on airports I see so you you were doing real estate and um and I also see that you're wearing the the hat that says goodness and everywhere else I've seen um in some of your videos and uh interviews I see the word goodness a lot what ises that word mean to you well it's not just goodness but it's goodness period period okay don't lose that and so that's a registered trademark of mble loes and Fishes the goodness period um and it was really an an effort uh by a brilliant mind uh many years ago in the advertising business to sum up what we do in what one word that that actually speaks uh across uh every tradition that could possibly exist in the world and um and it it also from a Christian point of view happens to be one of the gifts of the holy spirit goodness yes um and it's mentioned many many times in in the Bible uh but it's also fundamental to every other tradition uh that's out there and we wanted to invite as many people to the banquet table of goodness in mitigating this pandemic of homelessness that we possibly could so understood thank you for that goodness with the period um one of the fruit of the spirit yes yes good so Alan you had a transformational experience um that opened your heart heart to serve god with your whole life could you share with our audience what was that transformational experience and maybe it's not a one point in time but maybe it's a series of time um can you share it's actually yeah it it goes way back actually to when I was a child but I'm not going to cover that uh uh period um after uh Trisha and I got married and we started having children Trisha started taking our children uh back to church and um you know one day one Sunday I basically looked up from reading the paper and there she is with a couple of our kids we have five I don't remember how many she was going out the door to to go to mass and U it looked to me Lily like the train was leaving the station and so I made a commitment that I was going to join my family in that effort and if I was going to do that uh I wanted to study everything that I could about my Roman Catholic faith to find out why uh we do the funny things that uh that we do and and I developed a very deep and intellectual relationship with Christ um and then in 1996 I went on a men's Retreat that had I known that men were gonna hold hands with each other yes yeah that deal uh I I would have never ever in a billion years gone to that deal but it turned into exactly that and over about a two day 30 hour period of time uh that intellectual relationship that I had up here with Christ just dropped into the depths of the cave of my heart wow and it was at that moment that I just began to ask God what do you what do you want me to do and uh I wasn't asking him to you know I want to start some organization or something I was pretty happy doing what I was doing but uh uh here we are you know that was 1996 so that had to be 28 years ago uh what was it about that 30 hours that moved you so much during that Retreat there were U uh 10 testimonies given by 10 uh different men these guys would get up there and and vomit out stuff that I wanted to go up and go you know you really need to keep that inside your own skeleton closet but but then Lily they would connect it to to forgiveness reconciliation healing and and Redemption one one after another and um I I was moved deeply by the vulnerability of these men uh primarily because I believe that we men for the most part can be extraordinarily superficial in our relationships with each other not very intimate with each other yes uh intimacy and vulnerability are not necessarily uh you know would not be cons construed culturally as a a masculine trait so we would stay away from those things but here I am in the middle of all this it just blew me away and and and it opened the door uh for my ability to be vulnerable and intimate with other men that's those those are 30 great hours spent yes I think all men should probably go to one of those Retreats yeah well I agree totally and the ones that do come come home transformed that's right so you had that conversation with god after the 30 hours what was that conversation like what did you ask him specifically and and what did you hear from him you know God just doesn't kind of drop down and start talking to us and go hey Alan I want you to go and do this thing or that thing um but what I started to do um was say yes to what one would consider very small things like uh becoming a Eucharistic minister or elector or U my wife uh began to uh work with the nursery on Sundays uh at at church and uh and then you know I became a member of the Knights of Columbus and um and then once you start volunteering and and people recognize that and then they they pick on you they want you to do more and more and and we kind of became uh one of those couples uh that the church looked at and in about 1997 I got asked U uh to lead out on a Ministry that Catholic Charities was trying to put together around Austin called uh the sac lunch program which would have our Parish providing uh once a week 50 sack meals to the day labor site that was downtown which uh P primarily would employ uh people that lived on the on the streets and I I got asked to to lead that that led to beginning a relationship ship with these men and women uh that were out there and then um one day my wife and I in 1998 probably the spring of 98 about 26 years ago is were with a girlfriend having coffee and she was telling us about a Ministry in Corpus Christie Texas where on cold winter nights uh multiple churches cross denominational would come together pull their resources to take out to the men and women women on the streets and and at that moment out of my subconscious mind into my conscious mind came the image of this catering truck uh as a distribution mechanism from th from from those that have abundance to those that lack and uh here I am uh 26 years uh after that uh in the middle of something that I could have never dreamed of or fathomed and that's how the mobile loaves fishes um started right right just like that first first is to deliver food and I believe clothing and like blankets yeah blankets and hygiene products and uh yeah how many trucks do you have now I believe that there's H 13 in Austin and then we've uh We've planted uh and are the god parents basically of about 13 more around the country oh wow people are able to use your process and replicate it elsewhere that's correct and how many meals has been served thus far well in Austin alone uh just about 7 million and U I'm not sure because we don't keep track of the national numbers but probably double that wow that's been that's a lot of meals um when you was when you went from one truck or one food truck to now 7 million meals later was there a big hurdle to to get this started or um once the ideas came it just start to flow you know I can't think of any hurdles Lily you know when we bought that truck and in May of 1999 at all the masses at uh our church about 250 people signed up to volunteer it it just blew right away it was pretty amazing wow U and it's been that way for every truck that we've ever planted in every Community it just pretty much took off prior to that do did you have experience working with the homeless population uh not not at all didn't have a clue who they were um didn't understand them at all but fortunately when we were putting this deal together uh God put into our lives a friend of mine now deceased houon flake that who had spent most of his life homeless born the same year I was 1955 uh and he became our eyes and ears uh to the street and uh pretty quickly educated us on uh the reality of this beautiful population well I've heard you say that housing alone doesn't solve homelessness a community will can you EXP ban on that and I also heard you mention something about what what is home versus homeless yeah so our fundamental foundational belief at mobo and Fishes is that the single greatest cause to homelessness is the profound catastrophic loss of family but for an extremely small percentage of our population less than 1% of 1% of our total population uh were the family unit is completely broken and the forge family that usually comes in to rescue doesn't exist uh as well it's a recognition that what you and I need first and foremost is a human- to human heart-to-heart connection and so uh this pandemic of homelessness is in fact extraordinarily relational and so uh the phrase uh housing alone will never solve homelessness but Community will is saying that we we have to stop this transactional movement of thinking that we can just stuff people inside an apartment complex somewhere and that's better for them that may not be better for them and often times especially in the chronically homeless population it is uh it is not better uh at all and and you this is the first time um that I've heard more focus on the relational side for as part of the solution than than the housing and the food um so you came to that conclusion through all your interactions with with the homeless that's correct yeah so they taught us uh they taught us that and U when when you think about if you want to understand what you know homelessness you have to understand what home is and we believe that there's eight characteristics to home home is a place of permanence so when you're permanently settled that that's where you can build relationships home is a Dwelling Place home is a place of embodied inhabitation you can look around my office and you can see the embodiment of who I am uh as Alan Graham you come to my home and you see the embodiment uh Allan and Trisha Graham home is a place of safety and refuge yes hard to be safe uh under the bridge home is the place of hospitality um it's where we love to invite people in break bread uh with each other home is a place of stories and memories it's often said that the mortar that holds the bricks of even the most impoverished home together are the stories and memories that flow from that home uh home is a place of orientation I can tell you that I've been in some pretty cool places around the world um but my compass is always oriented to Austin Texas Community First Village and then last and not least home is a place of affiliation and belonging and Lily it turns out that you and I just kind of like to be around people kind of like us yes there's nothing wrong with that no it doesn't mean we don't have friendships with different people from different political or religious or economic or cultural perspectives um but I will tell you that when you look at your core group of people uh they're going to act and behave a whole lot like you that's how we are those are those are deep um profound insight to not just what homeless is but also what home is so based on that uh you have developed a housing concept that is quite amazing um that provides what permanent housing for the chronically um homeless share with us that that Community First Village um it the name says it all um but there's so much more if you could tell us about this Village well um currently it's a 51 acre Master plann Community uh composed of uh what we call part Model Homes they're they're about 400 square ft in size uh and then a product that we call a micro home which are about 200 square F feet or less in size um uh built in a community environment with all kinds of Assets in the communities we have a 9,000 SQ foot living room we I'm sitting in a 16,000 foot multi-purpose building right now we have a a clinic and a in a market right outside my window here we have a maintenance uh uh operation shop we have an entrepreneur Hub where uh Fine Art jewelry and Ceramics can be made we have a farming operation uh we have an outdoor movie theater you know the movie screen 44 foot uh you know nice yeah um and we're under construction uh and and we have about 500 35 homes here and we're under construction on another 127 Acres uh that will add about uh 13 to, 1400 more homes plus all the infrastructure uh to that that is that sounds very um comprehensive and holistic yes and and I live here so hey and and and um it's interesting that you introduce yourself as a real estate developer this is a um real estate engage what do you call it real estate project of a of a lifetime yeah no it's uh somehow God continued to bless me with doing more real estate deals uh uh I I I saw that the the residents are referred to as neighbors that is so endearing our model is a very relational model not a transactional model so when we use the word client or or tenant uh or resident um that's profoundly different than uh being a neighbor and so uh that's a culture that's uh continues to grow within the village uh is that uh we're all here to get together we're all neighbors and there's that piece of ownership when you're a neighbor in this in this community so yes um everyone pitch in right everyone pitches in yeah pretty much to their capabilities I mean it's uh uh it's it's just like your family we got our dysfunctional Parts course yeah of course so um yeah yeah but you know um if you walk around our property that's a beautifully manicured uh uh little to no trash around uh you see people you know when they do see trash uh picking it up uh you know they see me doing doing it if I see a cigarette butt on the ground I pick it up I throw it away people see that and you model you model neighborly um Behavior yeah yeah so how does one qualify to stay there well you have to be chronically homeless and so that's an unaccompanied male or female okay with a disability having lived on the streets of Austin for at least a year are episodically homeless adding up to a year over a 4-year period of time now the average number of years on the street uh for our neighbors here is uh nine years wow so this is a a major change for them to have stability and one place to go yeah very major change wow and how long do they usually stay there um I'd have to really go back and look at the numbers of nobody is really uh graduating so to speak and moving somewhere else we have on average about a 15% turnover every year 40% of that's due to death uh a small percentage of that would be somebody moved into a different housing model or reconnected with family several of those will be have been evicted for a variety of reasons so Alan this is not really a a short-term solution it is permanent housing it's not trans like you're here until you for as long as you need and you move on to something better this is permanent housing that's correct and even after you uh you pass away Lily we will cremate you if that's your desire and put you in one of our columbariums and ET your name in Granite um so we can tell lies about you for the rest of our lives so because sometimes this is their only community and family that they have yeah and you know uh post this life uh most Indigent people get buried in the poer cemetery where the despised and Outcast go to be lost and forgotten and uh we're telling them no we're not going to forget you oh that's that's so that's so touching um so how how well do the community um that the neighbors live together you know there's about 450 people that live here m and uh I'd like to describe it as it it's it's like your family mhm uh there's disagreement in your family uh there's conflict between you and your siblings there's political conflict there could be religious conflict uh there could be all kinds of you know you have a brother that's a crack addict that's been stealing from your parents that you know and uh all of these things exist sure here and um we manage it the way that any family uh would manage it we we do our best to hold people accountable um if your behavior is so disruptive it may be that you can't be here uh because it disrupts uh but there's a t tremendous amount of grace and mercy like there probably is in your family uh and patience and understanding and yeah so how is this community supported is do they they pay rent right do they they all have to pay rent yeah everybody pays rent and um you know that that that uh supports about 15 to 20% of our operations and the balance of it we must raise philanthropically sure are there to your point of you know managing and supporting should there be any um disagreements or uh disturbances is there like a HOA um or there's there's employees on site property managers what's this setup like well we have 110 full-time employees on this property right now and and growing so we have Property Management Neighbor Care uh and then we have a number of uh partners that are on site that add about 25 or 30 additional employees from uh Behavioral Health uh physical health addiction recovery uh Elder Care uh restorative justice so when people get into uh little battles with each other we can U you know approach resolution in a different way than the criminal justice system and all that is on site available everything's here yeah wow I I read about missional um you have missional there what's their role how what does how does that work they live there or they just come in and spend a day yeah there's about 55 people that live here uh that have never been homeless uh in their lives they've chosen to uh for the most part sell homes and then uh come in and move into the village and and be an intentional neighbor it's it's really that simple takes about a year to discern into that role you know they're one of the secret sauces to work that we do having people in the neighborhood that will be supportive yeah yeah and modeling good behavior and uh and then also you know the their eyes and ears for the whole neighborhood that helps uh uh keep people accountable this is a faith-based Endeavor but I also heard you say um preach the gospel often only when necessary use words you know we're not prti ERS here uh but we are formed uh out of our deep Love Of Christ and our our our Christian vocation but we we want to be a Ministry that welcomes anyone and everyone in to serve with us and so we want the banquet table of inclusion to be as large as it possibly can how do you overcome the naysayers um because see I see I I've been reading up on um mobile Loaves and Fishes and and and your uh the various articles and Facebook posts sometimes I see negative comments I've seen NE negative comments uh from people here in Austin invited them out to the Village uh and it turned into a million-- dooll gift if somebody is really inflammatory we invite them out here let me show you what we see it's 100% conversion rate that's a great way to address it um and sounds like it's it's very fruitful that way yeah yeah it you know look uh we just had an article in the New York Times and uh I didn't read all any of the comments but the people that did said 80% of the comments were awesome 20% of them were uh you know on the other side of awesome and uh U and that that's the world we live in it is yeah actually you have a really good ratio cuz us the whole reason why we have hello worlds is there just so many negatives and that we have to take the time to highlight the positives yeah yeah no absolutely one of the things that I I was about you um you know you're a Serial entrepreneur and so you probably have all kinds of ideas and um it was interesting that you were able to get the Architects to compete um and and provide is it the the the the blueprints for the community yes so in 2014 another architect friend of mine was was challenged how we were laying out the then micro homes on the property he came in and started putting some architectural creativity up underneath then they got an idea to go to the American Institute of Architects Austin chapter and that that's where this national competition called tiny victories uh unfolded so your fundraising sources you mentioned you know the rent is probably more of a commitment type of a um use versus really providing you a whole lot of income to support this um this Village so how what is truly sustaining um this big operation well philanthropy has been uh a key component of that but as we continue to scale the operation it becomes more difficult we're we're looking at all kinds of different uh uh opportunities uh the Department of Housing and Urban Development last year approved a waiver uh allowing our micro homes which have no Plumbing no kitchens no bathrooms in them uh to be classified as an SRO a single room occupancy and and eligible uh for a Housing Voucher and uh and and so now we're uh in the very very beginning stages of implementing that and uh the fruit of that will be seen uh over the next uh uh couple of years and that that will add uh to our sustainability uh uh you know to that but um in a lot of ways we're you know we rely on the abundance of God to uh to provide the resources uh that we need so you know Federal corporate individual donations are all very important well uh individual donations are really at the top of the list you know and government resources through a variety of different mechanisms uh most of our uh Partners on site like Mental Health Care physical health care Elder Care Etc uh have a significant portion of their operational funding coming from government sources okay so so having the the support services um provided for but there's still a whole lot of Housing and and and operations to keep it going that requires the the resources and the donations of people people like like us yeah that's correct gotcha so now you you've been at this it's been over 25 years since you were at the men's Retreat and and a whole lot has happened um what would be some key Lessons Learned and you're not done learning that you would like to share with our audience who might be U listening to a a call from God or um wanting to do something for the community probably my most disappointing aha moment was uh the viciousness of the nimi uh deal not in my backyard um and how strong and and volatile that situation is the other thing that I would probably say that's out there that 99.9% of the people don't understand is is really the extreme complexity of this issue and when people talk about solving and we don't ever use that term here or curing or ending uh they don't understand what you have to solve cure or end like the foster care system uh a better a far better Mental Health Care physical health care the criminal justice system is a train wreck uh uh living wages affordable housing I mean there's just a number of different issues out there that are feeding into uh being one the driver of this very very complex issue it's not easy it's not as simple as solving putting a roof over the head it's there's so many other root causes this is what you're bring a paranoid schizophrenic into uh your neighborhood that also enjoys smoking methampetamine you mix that cocktail with somebody next door that's smoking crack and drinking alcohol uh it it people just don't you know that's bipolar or something uh they just don't understand what would you say to someone who who is after hearing this episode would like to help whether it's directly with your organization or their local we would love more than anything is for people to come to Austin Texas and come and see what it is that we're doing so if you're an organization that is interested in replicating we have a replication Symposium that we do three times a year and they can fly down and spend two and a half days with us or they can come down and you know Austin Texas happens to be one of those cities that people want to travel to and visit so come down and spend some time eat some barbecue listen to live music and come check out the community first Village there also a myriad of organizations right in your town that are uh loving on uh the same neighbors that we're loving on here in Austin Texas and you could easily go get involved frankly just get out on the streets and meet these brothers and sisters and and meet some of the most gifted people that you'll ever meet I I have one of the most successful country music songwriters in the history of country music living in this Village that was uh homeless and you know and we have artists that uh you know mindblowing stuff comes out of their brains onto a canvas you you're and you're providing them space to exhibit their talents y yep sure do with their Entrepreneur Center has um were there new business that come out of it or is it pretty new or no I mean uh we've been doing uh this type of work for an awful long time even before the village ever became built but it's you know when I moved to Austin in 1976 I moved out of the Houston Texas area there were no panhandlers on our street corners and where are you Lily uh we're in we're in h Houston Sugarland Texas yeah uh today the panhandlers are ubiquitous they're everywhere and um but there used to be men and women selling newspapers and flowers and bottles of waters and cow skulls cow skins and velvet Elvis art yes you know on the street corners and today we've outlawed all that and so the only remaining Bastion of entrepreneurialism for those in extreme poverty is the first amendment Free Speech right to stand there on public property and beg and uh you can't go to another country in the world uh whether it's a poor country or a third world country a second world country or a first world country where um the there aren't entrepreneurs everywhere selling stuff all the time but not here and we recognize that and men and women want to work they want to be productive they want to make money uh and if we give them the opportunity to do that you'll be stunned at what they can produce I mean last year alone our neighbors here earned a total of a million $500,000 wow their own creation well their own Creations but they're also working in our property beautification and on our farming operation um there's a lot of creativity and labor yes yes and that gives them a lot of dignity and respect and know that they can dignity and work yes yes that's simple all right alen finally you had a wonderful quote you said that if there is a list of Fortune 500 happiest people on the planet you'll put yourself as number one tell us more it it's it's really a you know a challenge to you know we always measure you know the money side of things and uh there's a lot of unhappiness in that Arena and I I've seen a lot of that unhappiness because I've had the great Fortune of working with uh a lot of extraordinarily wealthy people and and I've had the opportunity of working with some of the poorest people on the planet and I've been in some third world countries where uh the poverty is unbelievably abysmal uh yet the people are happy and we' seen that yeah and there's a lot of unhappiness in America right now and dissatisfaction and uh we have to look in a in a different place and you know I think serving other human beings and getting outside of ourselves is uh uh one way of doing that so I'm sure there's going to be a lot of number ones in in in this country but I I certainly feel like I'm one of them that's that's a fantastic place to be congratulations because that's than not very many people can can honestly say that and I think you you spent um it's very sustained over a 25 years of of service like this yeah you have to be the happiest person on Earth I feel good feel good well thank you so much for sharing your story and there's so much more um that that is out there already um on different podcasts and whatnot but I really appreciate you coming on ours and uh share with our audience um the things that give you the most joy in life and hopefully that it will inspire our audience and myself um to go out and do more yeah awesome I appreciate it Lily thank you so much thank you I hope you enjoyed the episode we have a lot of fun putting the episodes together trying to bring you quality guests and good content so that we can Inspire each of us to be the our best version of ourselves it would mean so much to us if you would subscribe to our Channel and like our videos hope to see you next time